date: New Year's Eve 2007                                          
location: SkunkApe Research HeadQuarters, Ochopee, Big Cypress, Florida
  author: lillmossgangsta@youtube.com                                  
   music: CrazyFingers                                                 
    note: Lighter-Knot [see below]                                     

    

video copyright (c) 2007,2008 lillmossgangsta@youtube.com


Lighter-Knot
is very special fire wood.
There are different species of trees,
that grow in this land of Florida,
of which cypress burns best.

Every tree is thickest right at its base,
where the trunk ends at the surface of the earth,
and the roots begin to reach down into her.
This is called the "Fat Wood".
FatWood is the best part of a tree to burn.

When a tree is struck by lightning,
instantaneously
all of the sap and oil and resin
all of the life force and energy of the tree
is shocked and forced down into the FatWood.

When you find the FatWood of a cypress tree 
struck by lightning, that is Lighter-Knot.

Lighter-Knot does not float in water,
it sinks.
Lighter-Knot does not get eaten by termites,
nor easily decay,
it is too dense and heavy.

When properly dried,
Lighter-Knot will light easily (without kindling),
bursting into flames soon as touched by them.
It will burn hotter than expected,
and for far longer a period of time.

On this occasion, 
New Year's Eve 2007
We were blessed to acquire three ancient Lighter-Knots
that had been felled and dried since before the time
Everglades National Park even existed,
dug up by road service people widening the Tamiami Trail swale.

These pieces were so heavy, I needed a caterpillar tractor to
help me place them in the sacred fire.